The Phenomenon of Negation: Anton Chigurh and the Perversion of Merleau-Ponty's "Phenomenology of Perception"

Anton Chigurh is a character from the novel No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, which was later made into a movie by directors Ethan Coen and Joel Coen. This article is written to discuss the character of Anton Chigurh through the philosophical framework of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception. Chigurh represents an extreme or antithetical form of authentic subjectivity in Merleau-Ponty's view. The analysis explores key Merleau-Pontian concepts, including the distinction between the lived body (Leib) and the objective body (Körper), the active nature of perception in constituting reality, the embodied and reciprocal nature of intersubjectivity, and the concept of freedom as situated through the character of Anton Chigurh. Chigurh's interactions with others are analyzed as a form of systematic destruction of intersubjectivity, characterized by the objectification of others and the failure to establish reciprocal engagement. His adherence to uncompromising principles and deterministic view of fate is contrasted with Merleau-Ponty's more nuanced understanding of situated freedom that emphasizes continuous and open engagement with the world. Chigurh functions as a phenomenological anti-subject, embodying a pathological form of being-in-the-world. His character becomes a literary exploration of the denial of the most fundamental mode of human existence, as described by Merleau-Ponty highlighting the unsettling consequences of disengagement from embodied empathy, mutual intersubjectivity, and the ambiguous openness of existence.